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WiFi or Hard-Wired ? |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 53,633
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WiFi or Hard-Wired ?
Just wondering really, as I was talking to an Openreach engineer earlier on who was looking at my Sky Fibre installation and he seemed to be slightly bemused that I was hard wired with all my gadgets.
He said he always had his sky box on wifi. My router is no more than a couple of feet away from my sky box, as well as my nas drive and android media centre so i've got no real reason not to use wifi other than force of habit. So do you use WiFi or are you plugged in ? And am I weird for not using WiFi ?
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#2 |
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 12,053
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The Sky box in my bedroom has the Wi-Fi built in but the sky box in the living room has a small black box which plugs into the back of the sky box to gives us Wi-Fi.
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#3 |
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 53,633
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Quote:
The Sky box in my bedroom has the Wi-Fi built in but the sky box in the living room has a small black box which plugs into the back of the sky box to gives us Wi-Fi.
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#4 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 3,455
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Quote:
Just wondering really, as I was talking to an Openreach engineer earlier on who was looking at my Sky Fibre installation and he seemed to be slightly bemused that I was hard wired with all my gadgets.
He said he always had his sky box on wifi. My router is no more than a couple of feet away from my sky box, as well as my nas drive and android media centre so i've got no real reason not to use wifi other than force of habit. So do you use WiFi or are you plugged in ? And am I weird for not using WiFi ? ![]() |
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#5 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 53,633
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Quote:
There is no advantage in using wifi in your situation. Some modern computers such as the MAC Book pro don't have an ethernet I/P (I think it is an add on option) so it's easier for me to use wifi for it and its printer. The same printer uses USB to an xp machine that was hard wired but is no longer on line. My smart TV is wifi, a Talktalk box is hard wired and a Humax hard wired via a power line extender. What ever is easiest, in theory hard wired is faster easier and more reliable but I doubt you would notice any difference using wifi in your circumstances.
I think my Android Media Box would be more useful as well as the catchup services on that only work through WiFi. |
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#6 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 12,053
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Quote:
So do you use the box on wifi then ?. If you're using catch-up television do you download the shows over wifi ?
The little black box for the Sky box in the living room was sent out to us free from Sky. |
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#7 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 3,851
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You will always get most reliable signal using a cable compared with WiFi depending on distance. Close up doesn't make any real difference,but WiFi can be more affected by external influence.
Stay as you are and save WiFi bandwidth for when you need it. |
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#8 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 456
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Quote:
Just wondering really, as I was talking to an Openreach engineer earlier on who was looking at my Sky Fibre installation and he seemed to be slightly bemused that I was hard wired with all my gadgets.
He said he always had his sky box on wifi. My router is no more than a couple of feet away from my sky box, as well as my nas drive and android media centre so i've got no real reason not to use wifi other than force of habit. So do you use WiFi or are you plugged in ? And am I weird for not using WiFi ? ![]() Seriously - we just had our house rewired, and I took the opportunity to lay proper Ethernet cabling around. Speeds and reliability at any moderate distance from the hub is far better; wifi speed really suffers as the signal drops, so the wifi speed cannot match what is being delivered by the Sky Fibre (right next to the cabinet, and on Pro, so we get the full 79Mb.) |
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#9 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: England
Posts: 6,317
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My stuff is mixed, my DVR connects to my router via ethernet, my android box next to it needs to connect via wifi, as if i connect using ethernet, BBC iplayer wont work, it says im not in the right region or something, everything else is via wifi.
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#10 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: North Derbyshire
Posts: 41,782
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Quote:
Just wondering really, as I was talking to an Openreach engineer earlier on who was looking at my Sky Fibre installation and he seemed to be slightly bemused that I was hard wired with all my gadgets.
He said he always had his sky box on wifi. My router is no more than a couple of feet away from my sky box, as well as my nas drive and android media centre so i've got no real reason not to use wifi other than force of habit. So do you use WiFi or are you plugged in ? And am I weird for not using WiFi ? ![]() ![]() An Ethernet lead is far better than WiFi - WiFi is doing it's best to pretend to be an Ethernet lead, but can never manage it. WiFi obviously has it's uses, but for fixed installations wired is always best. I went to great lengths to run Ethernet cables to where my Sky box and TV are, involving floorboards up on two floors and working on four floors. I ran extra wires while I was doing as well
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#11 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Buckingham
Posts: 28,534
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Surely you just need to run one long cable and use a switch? Tiz what I do. Even recording two HD internet channels and watching a third it is hardly going to break sweat.
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#12 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 64
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Yeah the engineer is an idiot, I'd always trust the reliability of ethernet over Wifi in every possible situation.
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#13 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 53,633
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Quote:
You're certainly not weird - you're sensible, and the OpenReach guy was an idiot
![]() An Ethernet lead is far better than WiFi - WiFi is doing it's best to pretend to be an Ethernet lead, but can never manage it. WiFi obviously has it's uses, but for fixed installations wired is always best. I went to great lengths to run Ethernet cables to where my Sky box and TV are, involving floorboards up on two floors and working on four floors. I ran extra wires while I was doing as well ![]() ![]() I'm impressed with your dedication to wiring up your stuff though - i should probably do that to try and tidy up the mass of cables behind my TV! I can see the advantages of using WiFi in certain situations though but it's good to know that hard-wiring certainly has it's place
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#14 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 252
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It's very simple. If you can use a network cable then do so. If you can't then don't. If it's not convenient to use a cable then use wifi.
Wifi reliability depends on many factors - distance from hub / router, number of other wifi hotspots around, interference (microwaves).... |
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#15 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 252
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Quote:
You're certainly not weird - you're sensible, and the OpenReach guy was an idiot
![]() An Ethernet lead is far better than WiFi - WiFi is doing it's best to pretend to be an Ethernet lead, but can never manage it. WiFi obviously has it's uses, but for fixed installations wired is always best. I went to great lengths to run Ethernet cables to where my Sky box and TV are, involving floorboards up on two floors and working on four floors. I ran extra wires while I was doing as well ![]() |
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#16 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Scotland
Posts: 13,457
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Quote:
You're certainly not weird - you're sensible, and the OpenReach guy was an idiot
![]() An Ethernet lead is far better than WiFi - WiFi is doing it's best to pretend to be an Ethernet lead, but can never manage it. WiFi obviously has it's uses, but for fixed installations wired is always best. I went to great lengths to run Ethernet cables to where my Sky box and TV are, involving floorboards up on two floors and working on four floors. I ran extra wires while I was doing as well ![]() |
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